6 Ways to Maximize Lead Generation for Hotels

Convincing people to stay at your hotel is no quick and easy process. People tend to have high standards for their living spaces — even temporary ones — and it takes time to persuade them that your rooms meet those standards.

That’s why lead generation for hotels is so important. It takes a strong digital marketing campaign to win people over, and creating leads — people who are interested in booking a room with you, but who haven’t yet fully committed — is a crucial step in that process.

But how do you do that? How can you turn anonymous Internet users into hotel leads? Below, we’ll look at how to generate hotel sales leads using six different marketing tactics.

Read on to learn more, and then consider partnering with WebFX — the digital marketing agency with over 28 years of experience — for our lead generation services. Just call us at 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!

1. Content marketing for hotels

Users won’t always be ready to click on a CTA right from the start. Sometimes they need something to draw them in and capture their interest first.

Content marketing is a great tool for doing this. The idea behind content marketing is to craft compelling content — from blog posts to videos — about subjects related to your industry, which users will hopefully be drawn to in search of useful information.

The content you create should be legitimately useful. Don’t fill your pages and videos with fluff — give users content that will benefit them in some way.

When you do this well, users will come to your site in large numbers to view your content, and they’ll trust your brand more after doing so. You can then use things like gated content — where users have to submit their emails to view the content — to drive hotel lead generation.

Hear What It’s Like to Work With WebFX!

“All of my interaction with our account manager has been so positive. I worried about the amount of money I was spending and she has made it worth my while. I understand there is a team behind her as well but I have been so impressed. Her responsiveness is outstanding.”

Real Estate Rental

2. Search engine optimization (SEO) for hotels

As valuable as CTAs and content marketing are, they only work if users can find your site in the first place. Since the best place for people to find your site is through Google, you need to use search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO is the practice of optimizing your web content to rank in Google search results. It involves several factors that make Google view your web pages more positively.

When it comes to your written content, the main way to enhance SEO is to include relevant keywords you want to target in Google, like “hotels in [your city].” That way, when people look up those keywords, they’ll see your content.

You can also improve your SEO by earning backlinks, which are where third-party websites in the hospitality industry link to your content. You can do this by reaching out to websites in your industry and requesting that they link to your site in their content.

When Google sees that your site has several backlinks, it views your site as reputable, and ranks it higher.

3. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for hotels

In addition to SEO, you may want to consider investing in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. PPC achieves a similar function to SEO, putting your content in front of users who search for relevant terms in Google, but it does so via a different method.

With PPC, rather than optimizing your content, so Google will rank it organically, you pay to run an advertisement at the top of search results. The good news is, you only have to pay for an ad when someone clicks on it, making PPC relatively cost-effective.

As you can see in the image above, PPC ads look similar to organic results, save for the “Ad” label in the corner. When you click on a PPC ad, you’re directed to a landing page on that business’s website, where you’re encouraged to make a purchase or sign up for something.

To start a PPC campaign, you’ll need to set up an account in Google Ads. You can then bid on your desired target keywords through Google Ads. You want to outbid your competitors without going over your budget.

Whenever a keyword is searched, Google will display the ads of the highest bidders for that keyword.

4. Social media marketing for hotels

The key to knowing how to generate hotel sales leads is to go where the people are. Online, there’s no better place to do that than social media, where the average user spends nearly a third of their Internet time.

While you can start by creating a social media account and posting engaging content, a more effective lead generation strategy is to use social media ads. In some cases, these function like PPC ads, appearing in the margins of the site or app.

In other cases, social media ads take the form of sponsored posts. These ads are similar to organic posts from your account, but they get boosted to the top of users’ feeds.

Best of all, you can target very specific groups of users with your ads based on various demographics and geographical location. As more people are drawn to your site through your social media ads, many of them will likely become hotel leads.

5. Email marketing for hotels

Another fantastic hotel lead generation tactic is email marketing.

Email content is a fantastic tool for personalization and retargeting. However, to be able to send emails to someone, you first need them to give you their email address.

You can accomplish this by including email capture forms on your website. These can take various forms, from pop-ups to sign-up bars. You can encourage users to submit their emails to receive discounts, blog content, or something else that you can email to them.

Once someone has submitted their email, they become a lead. At that point, you can start sending them emails attempting to convert them.

6. Web design for hotels

One of the most straightforward ways you can generate leads is through your website. After all, your website is essentially your hotel’s central marketing hub online. If people are looking for your hotel, that’s where they’ll most likely go.

Your goal should be to make it as easy as possible for visitors on your site to become leads. On top of using written content — which we’ll get to in a moment — you should include calls to action (CTAs) throughout your site.

Your CTAs should provide a specific action you want users to take — whether it be booking a room or signing up for your emails — paired with a link or button that takes them straight to the page where they can do that action.

You also need to take the time to optimize your web design. No amount of CTAs will help you if users don’t want to stay on your website. Here are some ways to improve your web design:

1. Visual design: Make your website look visually appealing so that users will want to stay on it.
2. Page speed: Ensure that your pages load in under three seconds.
3. Responsive design: Optimize your site for a mobile format as well as a desktop one.

Get more help with your hotel lead generation from WebFX

Now that you know how to generate hotel sales leads, you should be able to increase your conversions significantly. But if you still want some help working out all the intricacies of it, no worries — WebFX has your back.

Our team of over 500 digital marketing experts is well-versed in lead generation for hotels, and can help you optimize all the steps above — from SEO to email marketing — to give you as many hotel leads as possible.

To get started with us, just call us at 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!

We Drive Results for Hotels

• Dedicated account manager backed by 500+ digital experts
• Renowned for our communication and transparency

Get a Quote